My daughter loves reading. If it was up to her we would read books all day long and quite often she requests them on repeat. With Christmas fast approaching we will no doubt be adding to her library. It got me thinking, what makes a good book in the eyes of a child? Is it the story, the adventure, the excitement? Is it the pictures, the colours, the detail? I’m guessing just like adults, children are attracted to different books depending on their character. In my little ones case (imaginative, funny, observant) I think it is the combination of detailed illustrations that she can muse over for hours, rhyming text and a good helping of humour that make a perfect book. This is her top 10 books of all time (so far!)

1. The gruffalo – A clever tale about a little mouse and a big gruffalo. It’s the humour, imagination and catchy rhymes that she enjoys, oh and mummy’s funny voices!

2. The gruffalos child – A follow up story, with the same clever mouse and this time, the gruffalo’s child. It uses the same winning recipe as the gruffalo.

3. The tiger who came for tea – A classic about a tiger that comes to a little girls house and eats all their food. My little one loves the humour and the fact that it is about food (she looooves food!)

4. Mog the Forgetful Cat - One of a whole series of Mog books. Written with brilliant humour and best of all its about a silly, fat cat. I love the illustrations of Judith Kerr.

5. Don’t wake the bear, hare! – This was one we took out of the library which had to be purchased immediately after! A story of a tea party and a big scary bear, who turns out of course not to be so scary :) A firm favourite and great to read outloud.

6. Tiddler – My daughter adores this story about Tiddler, the fish with a big imagination who tells tall tales. I have to say this is probably MY favourite book to read to her. I love that she points out all the different types of fish to me!

7.  The tale of Mrs Tittlemouse – A Beatrix Potter classic about a houseproud little mouse who keeps getting unwelcome visitors! I’m suprised she loves these stories as much as she does as the originals are written in quite old fashioned English. But she does!

8. The tale of Mrs Tigglewinkle – Another Beatrix Potter classic about a hedgehog who does all the other animal’s washing. The house in the side of the hill and the talking animals really capture her imagination.

9. We all went on Safari - This counting book looks at all the animals on safari. She loves the African names and guessing who might be Mwambe or Akeyla and I love the beautiful illustrations in this book.

10. Rosie’s hat – Another gem by Julia Donaldson. A different style to her normal stories, it is a lovely little story about a girl who looses her hat. Its the great rhyme and rhythm that make this one such a hit!